p0633 BC-People 1stLd-Writethru 08-21 0946

Eds: Updates with items on Hugh Laurie, Paris Hilton and Corey Miller, which moved as separates. Also contains item on Madonna.

AP Photos NYET155 of Laurie, NYET156 of Hilton, NYOL200 of Miller, XDUS101 through XDUS110 of Madonna.

NEW YORK (AP) Hugh Laurie, the British actor who won a Golden Globe for his role on the Fox medical drama, “House,” says speaking like an American isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“I haven’t identified a single word that is pronounced the same in America as it is in England,” the 47-year-old actor tells Entertainment Weekly magazine in its Aug. 25 issue. “And that can really take you out of the moment, having to constantly listen to yourself and check your accent. It makes it harder to immerse yourself in the scene.

“It’s as if you’re playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon. I moan about it a lot.”

Laurie plays Dr. Gregory House, the sardonic doctor who heads a medical team specializing in the diagnosis of rare disorders at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

House, whose leg has been crippled by a blood clot, walks with a cane, pops painkillers and has a perpetual stubble. He doesn’t like wearing a white lab coat, and he’s testy with his patients and staff. However, House is a brilliant diagnostician.

“I could see him very clearly in my head from the start,” Laurie tells the magazine. “I could hear him in my head the rhythm of his speech. What he was hiding behind the meanness and sarcasm.”

The third season of “House” premieres Sept. 5.

On the Net:

Entertainment Weekly: http://www.ew.com

Fox: http://www.fox.com/house/

NEW YORK (AP) Paris Hilton is no stranger to self-promotion. But when she asked DJs to play songs from her upcoming debut album, “Paris,” last spring, she wasn’t so confident.

“People go crazy,” the 25-year-old socialite/reality TV star/singer says in an interview in the September issue of Blender, on newsstands Tuesday. “They love it. Everyone’s like, Who is this?’ I don’t tell. Because I don’t want someone putting their phone up and recording it and making a ring tone off of it.

“I think when people don’t know it’s me, they won’t judge it. But if they know it’s me, then they’ll be like, Ugh.’ They won’t even dance.”

“Paris” the album was set for release Tuesday. Hilton’s breathy, reggae-infused single, “Stars Are Blind,” has climbed to the top of Billboard’s dance music chart.

Of her album, she says, “I, like, cry, when I listen to it, it’s so good.”

Hilton posed for Blender’s cover and inside pages wearing lingerie; in one photo, she wears a pink bra, black fishnet stockings and gold platform heels. In another, she wears a black bra and underwear.

She says the baby voice she uses on the reality TV show “The Simple Life” is an act.

“I’m always playing a character,” she tells the magazine. “I don’t talk like this really like a baby. I don’t act like myself in public, because I don’t really want to show everyone the real me. Because I have no privacy whatsoever, the only thing I have is who I really am.”

GRETNA, La. (AP) The rap artist once known as C-Murder has been ordered back into house arrest to await a second trial on a murder charge.

The state 5th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled last week that a judge improperly allowed Corey Miller to move around Orleans and Jefferson Parishes with a curfew. State District Judge Martha Sassone, who freed Miller from house arrest, issued an order Thursday requiring him to stay home except for court hearings.

Prosecutors had opposed letting Miller out of house arrest, saying he had already violated terms of his release, and wanted him to return to jail.

Miller, 35, is charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Steve Thomas, 16, on Jan. 12, 2002, during a fight at a now-closed nightclub in Harvey.

A jury convicted Miller, who faced a mandatory life prison sentence without parole, but a judge threw out the conviction after ruling that prosecutors hid the criminal backgrounds of some state witnesses from the defense.

Since his legal problems began, Miller has changed his stage name to C-Miller.

DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) Prosecutors in Germany said they have decided against opening an investigation into the mock crucifixion scene performed by Madonna at her weekend concert.

A crowd of about 45,000 packed Duesseldorf’s LTU Arena Sunday night to watch the first of two German concerts on the singer’s worldwide “Confessions” tour.

The scene in which Madonna rises from the stage on a mirrored cross while wearing a crown of fake thorns to sing “Live to Tell” drew criticism from religious leaders in Italy earlier this month, who condemned it as an act of hostility toward the Roman Catholic Church.

The 48-year-old pop star’s representatives have said the scene is not disrespectful toward the church.

Duesseldorf prosecutors said last week they would monitor reports about the concert but would not send observers.

Spokesman Johannes Mocken said Monday that while the concert stunt might be “hurtful to religious people,” there was no indication of a criminal offense.

Mocken said the scene was covered by laws protecting artistic freedom.

Madonna was scheduled to perform in Hanover on Tuesday. Authorities there have not publicly expressed concerns about the show’s content.